Volunteers at The Risk Factory have won the Promoting Intergenerational Projects Award at the recent Get Up and Go Awards.

The Risk Factory is Scotland's first purpose-built, interactive, experiential community safety centre. The aim of the centre and all the agencies involved in it is to teach young people in particular how to stay safe and to help others do the same.

Inside the building realistic settings are used as background to highlight specific safety messages.

Professional officers use interactive sets help to create realistic scenarios. The sets used include a house, road, bus, shops, railway line and a building site to name but a few. The children are guided around the centre by a dedicated team of volunteers.


One of The Risk Factory's younger volunteers Matt Robertson said of the award: "This is great acknowledgement of the volunteers and how well they all pull together. We have older people instructing P7 children and also older and younger people working together as volunteers with a common interest, regardless of age.

"The Risk Factory is a unique place in terms of the generations who work together to make the day a success. It is truly amazing how a group of extremely varied personalities, characters, ages and backgrounds can learn so much from each other."

This award comes on the back of a successful summer for the centre having already been one of ten projects honoured in the Teams category of the Inspiring Volunteering Achievement Awards.

The centre also received a boost in the form of a donation from Scottish Power of £4,000. Scottish Power is one of the centre's original supporters and contributions from them show just how valuable they feel the messages delivered by the centre are.

Councillor Paul Edie said: "Edinburgh is becoming a safer place to live every year thanks to the work of the Council and partner agencies.

"Early intervention by educational projects such as The Risk Factory help us to engage with young people and prevent them from becoming caught up in dangerous or antisocial behaviour.

"I would like to commend all of the volunteers at the centre and congratulate them in winning this award."

(GK/JM)